075: Don’t be intimidated by Linkedin w/ Petra Fisher
Don’t be intimidated by Linkedin!
With guest Petra Fisher
Let me introduce you to Petra: A “cranky old fuddy-duddy who claims to know shitloads about Linkedin”
— those are her words, not mine! It’s how her Linkedin bio starts. You can probably already tell that Petra is a LinkedIn trainer with a twist. She’s not really fussed about pleasing the algorithm. Instead, she shows you how to attract your dream clients: those who match your values, personality & fees!
I don’t often have a guest return to the podcast for a second interview. In fact, I think it’s only happened once before! But when my friend Petra Fisher messaged me to say basically: “Hey, I had a ball when I was a guest last time — my focus has shifted a bit now and I talk even more about values and purpose, would you have me back for a second round as YOU seem to be going more and more in that direction as well?” …I needed all of two seconds to ponder on this before I answered HECK yeah, I’d love to have you back on the show!
Oh yes, my cuppa tea indeed! Which is perfect, since the one thing Petra does every day, all day, is drink tea. It’s brilliant really, she’s made her tea-drinking part of her brand — and a very memorable part too. Pure genius, if you ask me! Petra doesn’t work as hard as she would like, as she often ends up stuck under the cat, and given the housing shortage, she’s not holding her breath for the young adult daughter to move out, so she made sure her online business allows her to travel and work instead.
Intrigued? Grab a cuppa and join me as I welcome Petra back for a chat about how to stop being intimidated by Linkedin, and instead make it enjoyable and profitable.
Identify what makes you YOU, and which bits are so non negotiable that you do want to make them very clear on Linkedin.
— Petra Fisher
Episode links
Connect with Petra — on Linkedin of course! Where else?!
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Disclaimer: The following transcript has been auto-generated and then cleaned up – and while the general flow of the conversation is there, it’s probably not 100% accurate.
[Petra and Petchy have a laughing fit]
Petchy: Welcome, Petra. Thank you. Or should I say, welcome back?
Petra: Whatever you like to say!
Petchy: It’s actually a bit of a timely return. I’m trying to become better friends with LinkedIn myself these days. So, yeah, I’m so honoured that you wanted to come back for a second interview. It’s been a couple of years. The last time that you were on the show was back in January 2021. And I actually had to look that up because it didn’t feel that long ago. So, yeah, talk to me. Tell our audience, first of all, a little bit about you. Who are you? What do you do? And then, yeah, bring me up to speed. Tell me, what’s the story? What’s happened in your world since we last spoke? And what made you feel like you wanted to come back?
Petra: All right, how long have you got? So, for anyone who doesn’t know me yet, I drink tea. I drink tea all day. I drink lots of tea. And to support that habit, I work with business owners like yourself, who want to become closer friends with LinkedIn, if you put it. What it means to me is using LinkedIn in a way that you don’t have to go and really search for clients, but that I like to say, people start talking behind your back. So mentioning you, in other words, showing up in a way that transforms your network into raving fans and referring ambassadors, clients, even. So, that is what I do and why I wanted to come back on your show. Well, obviously because it’s so much fun talking to you. But also I’m honoured. Last time I was on, two years ago, my big thing was that you need to infuse your LinkedIn with your personality. And that’s still true, but I have shifted a little bit or added on to it. And my big thing now is values. And it’s been a while ago, but when you had Sarah Santacroce on your podcast and she was one of the first people to ever interview me, so I sort of felt it all connected. And Sarah’s going that direction, you’re very much in that direction, because ultimately, business owners who sell their knowledge, like you and I, people don’t really need us. They can figure it out themselves. They can Google, they can buy a book, they can do whatever. If they do, however, want to work with someone, then sure, they want to know that we’ve got what it takes, knowledge and experience wise. But that ultimately, is not what is the last push in their buying decision. That is, are you the right person? For me, this is where personality comes in, which I used to talk about. But what if you would only attract clients, not only that you get along with, but that you also have shared values with? How good would that be for your business? So I’ve been doing that a lot. I comment on posts that may not be related to LinkedIn or branding or networking, but on topics that I feel so strongly about that if anyone thinks, eww, that idiot, supports trans people, then, yeah, you don’t need to be my client. And so that is also how I work with my clients. How can you make sure that you only track the people that align with your personality and your values. And I thought, well, who’s better to talk about all this kind of stuff than you?
Petchy: Well, those are kind words. Yeah. I do also take a very sort of values driven approach in the work that I do with my clients now, and that’s a shift that’s kind of happened. I’ve always been very into finding your clients or finding your kind of people, the people that you gel with and the people that you feel like you can be yourself with and then attracting them to being your clients. But I think it’s becoming even more important now to kind of lean on those values and showcase them and dare to actually stand for something, and that can be a bit scary, to be honest, because what if you push some people away?
Petra: Oh, what if you do?
Petchy: But what if you do? Then you make space for the people that you are going to have a blast working with. So I am so looking forward to this conversation today. And by the way, if you’re listening in on this and you’re thinking that the previous episode is now obsolete, that is not the case. It’s still very valid from my perspective, anyways. I loved all the things that you spoke about there as well, Petra, so check out episode 17 if you haven’t already. And if anything, I actually think that these two episodes are going to complement each other beautifully. So, yeah, if you haven’t already listened, go do that afterwards.
Petra: No, yeah, well, I think you’re right, because anything I said back then still holds true, both in what I believe in, as in what works on LinkedIn. So, like you said, this conversation is adding on to it. And there may have been new features on LinkedIn. Well, I know there have been over 150 features in the past two years. Some minor tweaks, some big changes. Now, the funny thing is, you said, what if you push people away? And I think that’s a good thing. I always say you got to make people run. It doesn’t matter if they run a mile or if they come running towards you, because there’s something like 900 million accounts on LinkedIn. I mean, that’s too many clients for you or me anyway, so we don’t have to please them all. So how about we only please those that we really want to work with? To me, it’s a bit like there’s things that you believe in, that you stand for, and if other people have opposite views, you can live with that. I do take on clients who drink coffee, even though I think it’s the most disgusting habit ever.
Petchy: I’m so glad that you said that, because I drink coffee and it’d be a bit of a shame if you couldn’t come on the podcast just because I drink coffee, right?
Petra: But there’s some things that we feel a lot stronger about. And this is where you have to ask yourself all the things like your values, your beliefs, which are the ones that are totally non negotiable. That if someone has the opposite views to you, that you just think, I do not want to work with you, I’m sorry, but those are the ones that you can share on LinkedIn that you can be open about, that it doesn’t matter if you scare people off. It’s a bit like being a Greenpeace supporter. If you just have your monthly automatic bank deduction. You may not want to talk about it, you may just think, yep, I support them and that’s it. But if you’re one of those volunteers who is scaling oil rigs on the weekends, then you feel so strongly about it that there’s certain people you don’t want to work with. So that’s what you gotta ask yourself. And that’s what I do with all my clients. Identify what makes you you and which bits are so non negotiable that you do want to make them very clear on LinkedIn. When I say very clear, sometimes it’s literally, by spelling it out. Look at the bottom bit of my about section of my profile that’s near the last few lines where it says that I’m opinionated but has a little something there that’s very, very specific. But it can also be a read between the line things. Like a while ago I did a post asking about the best apps for taking notes on your iPad and I said that I love pen and paper, but try not to waste this. I was writing on the backs of envelopes and would there be a way that I can do it on the iPad, that it would still feel like pen and paper and doodling and all that. So the read between the line message was, I am a Greenie and I don’t want to chop down trees unnecessarily without making it a really outspoken post about that. So that’s the different ways you can let the world know what you stand for.
Petchy: I love how you put it. I know a lot of people that I speak to are a little bit apprehensive about LinkedIn and they say it’s stuffy or it’s too formal or it’s boring or they don’t feel like they fit in, but they feel like they should be on the platform. But when they show up, they feel awkward and almost like they’re putting on a professional mask that doesn’t feel like them. And I also see people saying, oh, this type of content doesn’t belong on LinkedIn. And yeah, I think people can guess what my opinions are about that. But what would you say to people who feel a bit intimidated by LinkedIn?
Petra: Yes, it’s interesting because you’re sort of saying two things; that and the judgmental people like, this doesn’t belong on LinkedIn. So let’s address both. Firstly, LinkedIn is a network that is all related to your work. So if you’re a business owner, it’s a business network. And so, to me, how do you show up in your business when you work with your clients? Do you put on maybe a nice shirt and a jacket and that’s your LinkedIn profile picture. Do you rock up to work with clients in a T shirt, like I usually do? Even now, your listeners can’t see it, but my daughter would kill me. I wear a T-shirt underneath a jumper and it doesn’t match. I show up like that with clients. So my profile picture is a T-shirt. How do you speak when you work with your client? Do you swear like Trooper?
Petchy: Yep.
Petra: Then you may want to drop one or two explicits somewhere. I don’t go swearing for the sake of it. But if I write a LinkedIn post and it says, I was on this podcast with Patchy and oh, crap, we had some audio troubles, if that’s going to offend people I’m not out to offend people. I’m not out to shock people. But it is how I speak, and so I’m not going to censor that because you’re attracting the wrong people. Now, the funny thing is, I had a client because it’s about being you, about how you show up with your client. So there’s someone who loves my style. But then when we had this conversation, she said, oh, this is such a big eye opener. She said, I have tried to be casual and funny in my videos because it works so well for you. But she says, I’m not like that. I’m going back to putting on formal attire because that is who I am and that is what we’re after, like we said at the beginning of this conversation. Might you push people away, might you scare people off? Yes, absolutely. But by showing up the way you do your business. And the other thing is, you said there’s now people judging, like, oh, this doesn’t belong on LinkedIn, or that doesn’t belong on LinkedIn. Well, people who are judging, that says more about them than about your content.
Petchy: But I totally agree, by the way. Yeah.
Petra: What if you feel, what if you are one of those people and you feel that LinkedIn is just not what it used to be anymore and there’s so much content that doesn’t interest you, that’s useless, it’s this, that and rest of it. You are in control of that, because what you see depends on who you connect with. If you see a lot of posts that you think are too chetty or should be on Facebook or whatever you think of it, you made it happen and you can make it unhappy because LinkedIn is algorithm driven. So who you connect with, who you comment on, what you like, is what you get more of. If you’re seeing all the wrong stuff, unfollow people stop commenting. And especially if someone posts something that you think is really, really stupid, really dumb. Don’t go and comment to let them know, because that’s trading the algorithm, that you want to see more of it.
Petchy: I think a lot of people are guilty of that because it’s so hard to sit on your fingers when you’re like, oh, I don’t want to see this. You want to type something. And then by doing that, you’re actually feeding into what you don’t want.
Petra: Yeah, absolutely.
Petchy: But actually what you’re saying there, I’ve experienced it myself because I used to think that LinkedIn was this like a bit stuffy, stuck up place and I’m like, oh God, I don’t want to hang out here. And then as I added more and more of my kind of people to my network and I connected with people that align with my worldview and my values and my personality as well, at least to a certain extent, all of a sudden LinkedIn was much more fun. I was like, oh, now I’m hanging out with my friends, instead of just like hovering in a corner at a stuffy business conference. Because that’s what LinkedIn used to feel like to me. And yeah. So I think that just speaks to what you just said: You get out what you put in — and what you get out of LinkedIn is kind of a mirror image of the connections that you have, I guess.
Petra: Absolutely. And look, if you look at my profile, my headline is a little bit absurd. And I always have to warn people when I’m teaching them how to use LinkedIn to not do what I’ve done, but what my headline does do. It either makes people literally think, who’s this idiot? And never, ever come near me, or they connect with me. And usually their connection requested something like, your headline made me laugh out loud, or Met me spit out my tea laughing or whatnot. So it’s a really great filter to track the right people. Why do I say don’t follow suit? Because ultimately, your headline, the first bit, the opening, is visible every single time you comment. So ideally you want that bit to be really clear on what you do and who you work with. I have been on here well, not just been on here, but when working as a LinkedIn trainer for twelve years now, I’ve sort of established that reputation and that’s why I can afford to have a headline. That doesn’t make sense. Well, the whole thing does, but when you just see the beginning, it’s a little bit crazy, to be honest.
Petchy: I think your headline there, your bio, I think it’s a stroke of genius. It’s just injecting you into your brand, it’s become a part of your branding. Much like your tea drink. Yeah, like I associate you with tea drinking now, which is a fun way of injecting some of you into your brand. So it’s not saying anything about what you can do, the tea thing, but I don’t know, it’s an icebreaker. It’s something fun to talk about and something people remember. It makes people stop. Yeah, it’s Petra, that tea lady, the one with the funny bio.
Petra: And it’s funny because, well, you know all about personal branding way more than I do, but obviously my work is partly focused on branding as well. And so that headline started out as a joke, but then acid actually got a lot of really good results. I kept it. And now, even if I wanted to, I can’t get rid of it anymore because everybody refers to me as cranky. I can only change no way I can change the second half, but I can never change the opening for the rest of my life. And the tea drinking, well, luckily, that’s not a gimmick. That’s all I do all day. So, again, that sticks. That’s what people know. People contact me. Like, I hope you don’t mind that I actually like coffee. It’s a way to stand out because that’s the whole thing right? On LinkedIn. You want to stand out from your peers. You don’t have to be better, because you’re not. You may know more than another person, either because you’ve been in business longer or you read more books. Other people know more than you do, but it’s not the knowledge, because the knowledge is only important that you know more than your client. It’s everything else that makes you you that will ultimately work. And LinkedIn, we have all the different aspects. You have the bit where you can show you a complete narrative of your career, so you have more room than just to dump your CV. You can really get into a little bit of storytelling there. And you can make all of that even a job 20 years ago, focused on your next client today. And then you have your network. Of course, again, you can make sure you connect to the right people. And then there’s all the content you can either use to learn or to inform and have these three things in one tool working together. I think that is what is so amazing about LinkedIn. That is why it’s absolutely my favourite platform.
Petchy: So I wanted to bring it back a little bit to values that we’re going to talk about today. So I know we mentioned a little bit about it earlier, but this is something that I speak with my clients about, and I teach my clients often as well, is that your values are worthless. They’re just like they’re not even worth the piece of paper that you’ve written them down on if you just shove them in a chest of drawers and forget about them. You need to turn your values into actions. And so how would you say people can showcase their values on LinkedIn without necessarily being very explicit about them? You can be like, you can put them at the forefront, but more often than not, then maybe it’s easier to just sneak them in here and there. What are your suggestions for how people can do that?
Petra: Great. So a really easy one sits very near to the top of your profile. It’s pronouns, right? Pronouns came about because people who don’t necessarily identify with the body they’ve been given, they need to spell out to people how they want to be referred to, but that makes them even stand out from the crowd more. So to make LinkedIn way more inclusive, we can all add them so that for him, it’s a necessity they don’t stand out anymore. But because it sits right at your profile, right behind your name, there’s also people who think, oh, this is prime real estate. I’ll put here what I do, right? Brand strategist or LinkedIn training or whatnot. And so these are two ways of your values. Either, okay, some people don’t know any better, but by now there’s been so much talk about it, I think most people know. So putting something else there to me is saying one or two things. If I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, I’d say you didn’t know any better, but if I got a feeling you might know better, then it’s like, right, I don’t give a shit about making LinkedIn a safe and inclusive place. That’s a tiny little thing. And by adding them, you’re supporting people without having to be outspoken about it. Some things, it can be a rate between the line things. When you engage with posts that have to do with sustainability or equal rights or other things, when that’s not your area of expertise. By engaging with these posts, you still show what you stand for. You have to be careful that you find a balance, right, because you still want to work in your personal brand and be known for your expertise. But if one or two out of ten things you do on LinkedIn is more aligned with your values than your expertise, then I think that’s not a way to get there. And then, of course, that’s the explicit way. I was just having a look because I made this change to my profile a while ago in the about section. It sort of has a PS down the bottom, so I got to read it out to you. So then all your readers also know whether they like me or not. So I’ve got my about and then it’s got the call to action, like message me, blah, blah, blah. And then it says, oh, and I’m opinionated. I don’t believe that those bastards stole the election. Abortion needs to be illegal, guns are as important as toothbrushes, or it’s okay to wear fur. I don’t have any negative thoughts about people of colour, transgenders, nonbinary people, or anyone LGBTQ plus. So that is quite an explicit way of putting it out there.
Petchy: I love it.
Petra: And then you can find your way anywhere in between.
Petchy: Yeah, and I guess you can start small as well. You don’t have to necessarily be explicit to start off with, but I think voicing your values becomes easier when you are backed up by connections that share those values. Because then you know that you’re actually you’re among friends and that they respect you, and they respect your values. And even though they may not share every single value, they at least respect your right to have those values. And for you, like you said, to be opinionated about things. And if they don’t, then, well, yeah, too bad.
Petra: I definitely think you’re right. Connecting to quite a lot of people who share your values creates a safer space for you. But a while ago in the US, when Roe versus Wade got overturned and there were a lot of posts about it on LinkedIn supporting either side of the decision. And then there were a lot of posts that said, oh, anyone who agrees with this, I just immediately disconnect from them. Blah, blah, blah. I think that is also scary because when you only surround yourself with people that have the same views, you don’t realise what else is out there in the world, what other people are thinking. Although it might not work, you don’t.
Petchy: Create an echo chamber.
Petra: Yeah, there’s people I don’t want as clients. I don’t engage with their post, but unless it’s just really too much for me, if they would post every single day about things that totally offend me, yeah, I disconnect, but otherwise, I do keep some of these people in my network so that I know how the other half thinks, so to speak.
Petchy: Yeah, I guess you could view it as an opportunity as well. Because if you go the right way about it I’m not saying you should be, like, disrespectful and like, a keyboard worry or whatever, but if you see someone in your network and they’re posting something that you really strongly disagree with, I’m guessing it’s okay to actually showcase your values by commenting in a respectful manner to say I disagree. Here’s why. And then you’re kind of maybe opening their mind to a different way of thinking, but maybe you’re also showing other people that, hey, here’s someone with a different view. Let’s check that out.
Petra: It’s something that can work both ways, right? With the whole pronoun discussion. I’ve done it when someone sort of was like, well, I look like a woman, I am a woman. I don’t need this. And quite frankly, I feel really uncomfortable about doing this. This was two years ago whenever it first came out and I publicly commented, I just explained how it actually helps create a safer place for other people. And it was really fun doing this in the comments so that everybody could read along and then in the end, who aren’t like, well, I’m still a little bit uncomfortable but I’m going to put them out there anyway because, you know, some people thought, oh, if I add pronouns, people think I’m one of them. But also I’ve had the discussion with other LinkedIn trainers who yeah, used it creatively. And then when I explained what I thought that was really hurtful for some people, they said, oh, you’re actually really right, but also be prepared for backlash if you do. So there’s certain posts I will not engage with on social media, and that is when they’re, let’s say about if it’s for some reason it’s often in the US.
Petchy: Right.
Petra: But things around, yes, Trump did win the election. If you’re going to comment on that, you’re going to get so many trolls responding that you sort of want to stay away from that unless you think this is and especially I think it’s different when you’re living in the US. To really stand up for what you believe in. So if it was something here in the Netherlands, I’d be more willing to cop some nasty comments as well if I felt strongly enough. And that’s always a judgement, right. How much of your values do you want to really be outspoken about and how many of them do you just want to create some awareness around without having to go into these full on discussions? Because you don’t have to.
Petchy: So I guess what you’re saying is you’re going to have to figure out the way that works for you. But that values definitely do belong on LinkedIn as well.
Petra: Absolutely. You don’t have to please everyone. I mean, even if we’re business owners, right, but even if you were looking for your next job, what if you ended up in a job that would be absolutely fabulous in a company culture where you absolutely don’t fit in? Wouldn’t you have missed out on the job interview than land the job and be miserable?
Petchy: No thanks. It’s a hard pass for me on those kinds of jobs, actually. Well, I don’t want a job. I’m unemployable by now. Yeah, okay, so that’s by choice.
Petra: Look, okay, you can get a client, okay, let’s not even go company a one on one client for your business who wants to take out the biggest, most expensive service that you offer, plus a retainer for the rest of the year at double what you would normally ask for a retainer.
Petchy: Where’s the but?
Petra: Well, obviously they are very outspoken about the fact that God created people to procreate. So you shouldn’t be gay because that’s just not on, and that’s like really not on.
Petchy: Yeah, no, that would be a hard pass for me, too.
Petra: That’s a lot of money, actually. It would be half your annual income just from one client.
Petchy: Yeah, no, I have turned down opportunities like that before, actually, because I want to be able to sleep at night and I want to be able to live with myself and I want to. Feel like I’m actually working towards my vision that I have for my business and for the world and not moving myself further away from it. Yeah. And, you know, it’s hard because if you don’t have money, if you don’t have anything in the pipeline and then this huge big project comes up and you’re thinking, oh, I really could do with the money because the mortgage and I need to feed my family. And I get that it is really hard to make that choice, but is it worth it? Is what I ask myself. And in one particular situation that I’m thinking about now, to me, I was in that situation. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to pay my bills for the next month. But I also felt very, very strongly that I can’t do this. Because not only will I be deceiving myself, like I will be going against everything that I believe in, but what signal am I sending to the other people if I compromise on my values? And other people see it and they’re like, oh, but she’s saying that she cares so much about this, that or the other, whatever values they might be, but she’s gone and done that, then she’s worked with that person.
Petra: Yeah, people see through that. Well, if you did so and you did really well, then they’re going to recommend you to their friends. I know what you’re saying. Sometimes we really need the money. I’m a single mom, always have been. So there’s been no weekends where I’ll cut porn off the chart, there’s been no maintenance, nothing off. So it’s me, the chart, the mortgage and the cat. And there were times where I wasn’t sure if the money was going to be in the bank at the end of the month. But I’ve always felt I’d rather go stacking shelves at the supermarket two days a week until I’m back on my feet than compromise myself there. And I’m not here to judge other people because we’re all in different situations and we don’t know what we can or can’t do financially, but because you and I are here talking about how we find that our values have become more and more important in our business. And I guess it’s also easier as you get older, as you’ve been in business a bit longer, to become more outspoken about what you stand for and believe in. So I have to say, I’m 55 this year and I do admire that. I see people in their 20s, early 30s, being really outspoken and taking these risks already. It’s like I haven’t compromised myself in the past, but I haven’t been as comfortable work wise with being open about everything I stand for. And so I really admire people a lot younger than me who might still be at the beginning of their business journey, because ultimately it may seem scary, especially on LinkedIn too, but it’s going to set you up for exactly where you want to be right from the get go.
Petchy: Yeah, I think you’re right that it does get easier to do that, though. With age, I felt like I almost had a shift as I turned 40. I’m 43 this year. I can’t wait to see what happens when I’m 55. I don’t know if the world is ready yet, but yeah, I just feel like there’s not enough time left to care so much about what other people might mean. And I’m going to bring out this little statistic that I found just the other day, actually, that I think is so valuable in that respect. There was a study that had been conducted, I think it was last year, and the results are quite compelling. It says that 82% of consumers in that study said that it was important for them that a brand’s values aligned with their own.
Petra: Yes.
Petchy: And that I think it was 75% out of the people in the survey said that they’d actually broken up with a brand because there was a misalignment. So they’d, like, said, no, thanks, but no thanks, I’m finding someone else. If that’s not reason enough to kind of wear your values on your sleeve, then I don’t know what is.
Petra: I think that’s great, sharing these statistics, because it’s all very well for you and I to feel this way, but to actually have it backed up by some research. I’ve known this for a while, but it’s just nice to have your anecdotal evidence backed up by actual scientific research on the matter. Go and show your values and don’t be afraid to push some people away because you’re going to attract your people easier when you so now that we’ve talked about values and we talked about LinkedIn and what haven’t we talked about? We talked about tea. People are probably going to be interested in, okay, how can we apply this to our LinkedIn profile so that it actually helps us to connect with our next client or connect with our next collaboration opportunity? Like actual actionable advice.
Petra: I think one of the biggest things when you’re on LinkedIn, especially as a business owner, is before you do anything, get extremely clear about two things. What three things? Who do you want to attract? What do they need to know about you? Because these two things will influence everything you do in your profile, in your comments and on your posts. But the last thing is, what if it works? You’re attracting the right people, they resonate with your message, they land on your profile. What do you want them to do? Because it’s easy. We’ll say, oh, yeah, I want more clients, sure. But once they land on your profile, if you want more clients, what do you want them to do? Maybe you have a really small course or ebook that you just sell online, that’s less than $100. So people don’t need to talk to you first and that’s what you want to sell. That’s your main goal. Then you need to have multiple places right at the top of your profile that get people to just go on and buy that. Or maybe you send out emails to build trust and relationship with your audience and you want people to hop on your email list and that is a thing that in multiple places you encourage them to do. Or maybe you’re selling a bigger surface that’s going to get a bit more money out of their pocket. And then usually you have a conversation first to find out if your service really is the right thing for that person. If that is your business model, then obviously you want to get as many of the right people on calls so that you can make a few sales. So then that should be what your profile really is. So it is important, it’s all very well to become so visible, everybody knows what you do, but you also have to be very clear on what you want people to do once they’ve found you. So these are the three things. Who do you want to read, what do they need to know about you? So there’s your knowledge of value, personality and when the right people land on your profile, what do you want them to do? These three things you got to be really clear about, right? And then you can go and fix up your profile. So we talked a little bit about the headline, how if the opening is really strong about what you do, that’s the first thing what you do. Because on mobile phones people only see really few words, then who you do it for and then all the other stuff that you can still squeeze in. That’s the biggest piece of real estate of your profile. But for people to relate to you once they hit your profile, the bit they can see without scrolling, that needs to totally let them know and make them feel that they’ve landed on the right place and encourage them to take that action. So, clear messaging on your banner and in your headline, you can record a 32nd video that plays when people whack you on the face. That’s also more relatable because they can hear you, they can see you. You become more human. You can record the pronunciation of your name. So if you wanted people to address you by your real name instead of Petchy, then it’s probably quite useful to record that because I’m probably going to…
Petchy: That’s actually one of the things I’ve done!
Petra: And the thing is so with pronouns, don’t get creative. But your name, pronunciation, you got 10 seconds. In 10 seconds you can speak probably between 18 and 26 words. If you speak fast enough, 30. So you might as well put a little message in there. So all these things, your banner, your headline, your profile picture, profile, video name, pronunciation, headline, these are the most important parts. And then there’s this thing called creator mode. If you switch that on, you can then also put a link. So in your contact details, you can have three links, but people got to go there. But with creator mode on, you get the opportunity to add another link that is right on your profile in full view. And what a lot of people don’t see, they fill in the URL in the box, but there’s a box below it and that’s where you can put the little display text. So instead of having the http bloody blah, boring shit, you can say, get my profile checklist here.
Petchy: You know what I’m going to do afterwards, right? You know, I’m going to go and fix all the things that aren’t how they should be on my own profile.
Petra: You’d better! Yeah. So I think those are really the most important things. And it’s also why I used to have a LinkedIn profile workbook that people could download, but then some people also found it overwhelming because I was quite extensive in it. So I’ve changed that and gone for a checklist. And at first I thought, well, a checklist is a bit boring, right? So instead of just saying, have you uploaded a banner, a headline, this and that, I’ve actually grouped it into the items you need to have working for your first impression. The bits to add credibility, the bits that validate what you do, because you just write your profile that’s just using, oh, look at me. But it’s the recommendations and the endorsements that is other people confirming it. So I’ve really broken it up in these different purposes of your profile to achieve, because that was your question, to achieve that. It does resonate with the right people and it does send the right message out there because there’s a bit more to it than just copying your resume on there.
Petchy: I know people are going to be wanting that checklist, so I will be sharing that in the show notes for everyone to go and grab.
Petra: Yeah.
Petchy: I’m going to round off this episode by asking you what I ask every single guest that I have on, and that is if you could leave our listeners with just one key takeaway from everything that we’ve spoken about today, or just one easy to implement action point. What would that be?
Petra: One.
Petchy: One. OK, you can have two.
Petra: Okay. The biggest one is: find a way that you enjoy. If LinkedIn is something like an auditorial, you’re not going to stick to it and it’s a long term strategy. So I think my biggest thing is to find a way of showing up on LinkedIn that you enjoy so that you can stick to it long term. And, yeah, I think the headline. I think that would also be because I noticed that I keep coming back to it throughout this course. So that would probably be my biggest tip then, to really have a look at that and make sure it does the right thing for you.
Petchy: Awesome. So obviously if people want to connect with you, they can probably find you on LinkedIn.
Petra: Yeah, absolutely.
Petchy: Where else can they find you and learn more from you or just connect with you?
Petra: Yeah, well, actually, LinkedIn is the best place because I forget about my other social network. So although I have an Instagram account, I have a Twitter account, I forget to look at it, which is really embarrassing because I logged on to it the other day and saw that people had left nice comments, retweeted, and I did nothing. So I think the biggest thing is just connect with me on LinkedIn, mention this podcast so I know to accept you, so I know where you came from. And other than that, on my website, I would just go straight to the checklist, because that is what is going to be most valuable for you, rather than try and connect with me on all different platforms. Because LinkedIn is really where I live, where I am all the time. So that’s the best place.
Petchy: Yeah. So people can go and have a cuppa with you virtually.
Petra: Absolutely, I’d love that.
Petchy: Thank you so much for coming back for a second interview on Brand it! with Petchy. It’s been a joy.
Petra: Thank you. Yeah, I always love talking to you.
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